Best of Portland 2014: Best Civic Life

TILIKUM CROSSING - IMAGE: Kenton Waltz

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BEST BRIDGE NAME

It’s Tilikum Crossing. Yes, the
hours after TriMet announced the official name of its $134 million
transit bridge were filled with some unfortunate jokes about orgasms and
the fluids thereof, as well as some far more sophisticated humor about
how the name Tilikum was previously assigned to a murderous orca.
(You’re welcome.) But upon reflection, this is an awfully good bridge
name.

For starters, it just
sounds natural in conversation. “You take the Tilikum down to OMSI and
catch the 6 up to Broadway,” etc. It flows seamlessly into a recitation
of PDX bridges: Morrison, Marquam, Tilikum. And its meaning—“people,” or
“gathering”—feels apt for a span that will carry groups in buses,
trains and streetcars. It’s like finding a cooler way to say “carpool.”

But what’s best about
the moniker is that it’s the first time in memory that Portland has
utilized a language besides English. It’s Chinook wawa (“wawa” means
“language”), which grew from a blend of the tribal language of the Grand
Ronde and the tongues of the fur trappers who arrived to wrest away the
land.

Tilikum Crossing is
an acknowledgment of an undestroyed language that is, in and of itself, a
gathering. Or, if you have to joke about it: This is a bridge over
troubled wawa. AARON MESH.

BEST WINEMAKER

When not spinning hot, new club mixes at Portland-area
benefit galas, former Mayor “DJ Sam” Adams brewed his own beer. There’s
perhaps some symbolism in the fact that current Mayor Charlie Hales,
a University of Virginia alum who enjoys tooling down the Pacific
coastline on his sailboat, makes his own wine. In his Eastmoreland
basement.

The city’s most
prominent home vintner has been winemaking since 2009—mostly pinot noir,
with the occasional pinot gris. Hales and 15 pals, mostly veterans of
the regional planning agency Metro, travel to Banks each year to pick
grapes and turn them into mash. Hales makes about 200 bottles a year,
which he labels “Amuse.” “They do the first fermentation in one guy’s
garage,” says mayoral spokesman Dana Haynes, “and the second in the
Hales’ basement.” Then they drink it.

How’s the product?The
red’s a bit fruit-forward, but the mayor succeeds very well in making a
half-sweet white. Hales says the 2012 vintage is solid, “but I’m not
giving up my day job.” AARON MESH.

BEST KOREATOWN

I stare dumbfounded at the menu dangling above the
register: white Korean characters next to dollar figures on a red
canvas. Seeing my confusion, the chef points me to a second menu, this
one with helpful pictures. I point to stir-fried cuttlefish. He nods.

This isn’t Seoul, but Beaverton.
Out in the ’burbs—places like Waba Sushi and Grill, just across the
intersection from Buffalo Wild Wings—stands the state’s most impressive
collection of Asian businesses, which feel far more like an ethnic
enclave in New York or L.A. than anything in Portland proper. Here,
within a mile and a half of the Beaverton Transit Center, betwixt
standard suburban landmarks like Olive Garden, Dairy Queen and Izzy’s,
are nestled about a dozen Korean bars and eateries, from well-known
restaurants like Nakwon and DJK, to divey spots where the Korean-born
toast with big bottles of Hite and tuck into back rooms for karaoke.

At Waba, I was among
five customers—some of whom sat with the chef for dinner—and the only
one who needed English, or to be shown how to properly shake the white
plastic bottle of Walmae Makgeolli. I had a lot more questions, but
wasn’t equipped to ask. JOHN LOCANTHI.

BEST FAILED ATTEMPT AT MAKING DOWNTOWN BICOASTAL

On the corner of Southeast Grand
Avenue and Morrison Street sits a building that, by any account, is
starkly out of place. It seemed that way back in 1928, too, when the 12
stories of the Weatherly Building (516 SE Morrison St.) towered above the rest of Southeast Portland, just as they do today.

From
the rooftop on a recent morning, the Weatherly’s unobstructed
360-degree view offered an unusually quiet, tranquil look at the city.

The building was the
brainchild of the proud George W. Weatherly, local ice cream mogul—he
sold ice cream to most of the state and held the patent on the first
machine to produce ice cream cones—and prominent booster of the modest
east side of town.

For
years, the Romanesque Weatherly Building played host to its namesake’s
ice cream parlor, and was a crowning achievement of a push to make
Portland’s downtown bicoastal. But whatever momentum the movement to
develop the east side of the Willamette had was stymied by the Great
Depression in 1930. The grandiose Oriental Theatre, which Weatherly
built next to the tower and made more opulent than any theater on
Broadway, never found much success. It was demolished in the 1970s to
make way for a parking lot. The tall, gray building next door survived.

Weatherly’s tower has
been stagnant essentially since its inception. Today, it’s home to
benign offices, a barbershop, a cafe and an athletic store. A bank takes
up most of the first floor. It stands as a reminder that the east side
has yet to flourish in the way Weatherly wanted. It’s even rumored among
employees that a ghost (George?) can be heard fidgeting around, perhaps
plotting to convince developers to build on the east bank. ALEX
MIERJESKI.

BEST TRANSPLANT SELFIE SPOTS

Drunk with #Animals of Southwest

Welcome to Portland, fresh-faced
20-something: It’s time to drink! After your first boozy night downtown,
you’ll want to snap some appropriately weird shots with your new
friends. Well, head to the blocks around Southwest Yamhill and Morrison
streets near 5th Avenue, where bronze bears and sea lions frolic in
cement pools.

Tea-bag
that otter. Cause some beaver-on-beaver action. Lick the sea lion.
Since their installation in 1986, Georgia Gerber’s sculptures have, as
intended, provided “a sense of the wild in the midst of a busy city.”

Transplant #Brunch

You’ve made it. You’ve landed a
room in a dilapidated house with a dozen other transplants and a
part-time gig at a food cart. You had your birthday party at Sassy’s.
You’re finally rocking the faux ear cuff purchased at your first
Saturday Market—now it’s time to tell the world you’ve arrived. Sure, a
shot of your mug and a heart in cappuccino foam made with locally
roasted beans would suffice, but you’ll quickly learn that brunch is the
most hallowed cultural tradition in the City of Roses. Whether it’s a
subtle smirk above a glowing omelette at Mother’s downtown, or an
effortlessly intentional candid at Jam on Hawthorne Boulevard, brunch
makes the ideal setting for a transplant’s social-media debut as a real
Portlander.

Ironic Selfie in Front of a Tourist Taking a Selfie in Line at #Voodoo Doughnut

We’ve all seen the hundreds of Midwestern aunts in khaki
cargos packed with Powell’s memorabilia and rain gear, standing in line
for decent doughnuts topped with stale cereal.

Duped
by the manipulative renown of the pink packaging, they wait for hours
in the Old Town sun, oohing and ahhing at every facially pierced
passerby and the “Keep Portland Weird” mural. Little do these visitors
know that while they capture duck-faced memories, locals are making an
artful mockery of their misplaced patience. With a deft flick of the
wrist, a skilled self-photographer can capture a flattering selfie while
including a gaggle of tourists taking their own Voodoo queue selfie in
the background.

Trapped by the #WorldNakedBikeRide

Watching a parade of nude bodies pass like a locomotive
before your car may sound like cosmic fortune, but anyone trying to
drive anywhere on the inner eastside on that fateful Saturday in June
felt anything but #blessed.

Even if you’re
expecting the Naked Bike Ride, there’s no way of plotting an alternative
way home since the organizers don’t disclose the route until the ride
starts. Instead, naked bodies blocked every major thoroughfare from
Mount Tabor to downtown. Bored policemen waved cars by as the wall of
pale, Portland flesh obscured natural traffic flow. You should look
bored too. LAUREN TERRY.

BEST REVENGE

The Worst Day of the Year Ride was
always something of a joke. For 13 years, the group bike ride had been
held in early February, ostensibly on the worst weather day of the year.
This being Portland, that meant everyone put on mittens and sweaters to
frolic in the mist just long enough to get chilly-willy so they could
properly enjoy hot cocoa with marshmallows. Tee-hee-hee!

Then, this year, it
snowed. When the first flakes fell, organizers canceled the more
challenging route through the West Hills for safety reasons, encouraging
everyone to come out for cocoa, doughnuts and an easy ride around the
flat streets of downtown. “Have no fear about the forecast,” they said.

Mother
Nature would not be so easily ignored. After 13 years of mockery, she
answered the challenge, spitting sweet, icy vengeance on the bumptious
and indolent outdoorspersons of Portland.

The snow kept coming.
Then, freezing rain hit. More snow. With about a foot of snow on the
ground, topped in some places by an inch of ice, organizers were forced
to cancel everything—even the cocoa.